JEA’s former Downtown headquarters campus is poised to undergo an office-to-residential conversion after Jacksonville City Council granted final approval of an agreement for the project on June 9.
Jacksonville-based Live Oak Contracting plans to purchase the 2.47-acre, three-building property through The Jewel at 21 West LLC for $1 million and develop it into 180 residential units with rooftop amenities, office space and ground-floor uses.
Council approved a purchase agreement on a 16-0 vote, with members Rory Diamond, Chris Miller and Jimmy Peluso not present.
After JEA issued a request for proposals for the property, Live Oak was one of two bidders for the 19-story office tower at 21 W. Church St., the adjacent former customer service building and the Adair Building at 421 Laura St.
The agreement allows Live Oak one year, plus a possible 90-day extension, to inspect the property. The company, which contributed $100,000 of its $1 million bid in earnest money, can terminate the purchase and get recoup its earnest funds during that time.
The property is valued at $14.98 million, according to a formal appraisal in 2025. The Duval County Property Appraiser lists the property’s value at $29.97 million. A 2016 study from Fairlead Commercial Real Estate; Haskell; and England, Thims & Miller placed renovation costs between $65 million and $78 million.
According to a memo presented to JEA’s board, costs to maintain the buildings totaled $3.71 million from fiscal year 2023 to fiscal year 2025. Those costs included security, utilities, landscaping, janitorial services, pest control and corrective and preventive maintenance.
The property
The campus comprises:
• The 347,811-square-foot office tower. The structure opened in the early 1960s as the Universal Marion building and was topped by a revolving restaurant.
• The former customer service center, a 248,220-square-foot, six-story office building also built in the early 1960s.
• The Adair Building, a parking garage at 421 Laura St. with more than 500 spaces. The building includes street-level retail space.
• A below-grade parking deck with about 190 spaces. Those spaces were shared by the headquarters tower and customer center.
JEA vacated the old headquarters in 2023 and moved to its seven-story central office at 225 N. Pearl St. JEA and developer Ryan Companies US broke ground on the new headquarters in 2020 after three years of planning. Its cost was estimated at $100 million. JEA leases the building, which was sold to Real Capital Solutions for almost $95 million in 2022.
In February 2026, JEA’s board approved the sale of the old headquarters to Live Oak. The vote sent the sale to Council for final approval.
The other bidder, Simple State Inc., offered nothing for the building, instead saying “the true value of this transaction lies not in a cash payment for an aging asset, but in a strategic public-private partnership.”
Bid financing
Live Oak’s bid did not contain an estimated project cost for its office-to-residential conversion of the property. The bid did include a breakdown of the project’s capital stack, including 65% in debt, 20% in private equity and 15% in public funding, such as incentives and tax credits.
Speaking to the Council Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety committee on June 1, Live Oak President and CEO Paul Bertozzi did not directly answer a question on whether the company would seek public funding for the project, saying that the firm had “a lot to evaluate.”
Noting that the state Legislature were voting on property tax reform that could cut $300 million of funding from the city, Salem said incentives could be “difficult to afford.” Lawmakers agreed to place the proposed tax reform on the ballot in November.
Live Oak said the project would create 300 construction jobs and more than 100 jobs upon completion, while increasing the city’s taxable value.
In a Feb. 12 presentation to the Council Special Committee on the Future of Downtown, Downtown Investment Authority CEO Colin Tarbert said the DIA estimated a $19 million completion grant would be needed for the project.